Edition 9 - You never really win.

Hey folks,

Just got back from a lovely 4 day weekend away with my family. I’d like to tell you that I’m relaxed and ready to go for the week ahead but having chased an 8 and 10-year-old around a waterpark for 4 days I’m ready to sit still at my desk for a day or two, to be honest!

Massive thank you for the feedback from the last edition of this newsletter Double-click. Feels like that one touched a nerve for many of you. It’s what I'm here for.

From time to time I chat with folks who have an ask, and last week I had the pleasure of spending half an hour with a smart young person who has a massive future ahead of them. We spoke about various things but they hit me with a great question that, although I have been asked several times in the past, still pings like an epiphany when I answer it. The question was “How do you deal with success and failure?”

Want the TL:DR version of my answer? Well, you never really win and you never really lose. We’ll come back to the latter as this week I’m going to Double-click on why you never really win and I hope it helps a few other people like I hope it helped the individual I sat down with.?

You never really win.

During my career, I have seen many people succeed and an even greater number stumble. Their ability to deal with both sides of that coin for me has often been a tell about whether they are set for greater things or whether they are at the peak of what they are likely to achieve.?

Sometimes I’ve seen a win go to people's heads. Worse, the win goes to the heads of those around them. For me, the sadder side is seeing people who never recover from a loss. I’ve seen some incredibly smart people who have never dealt with a loss, who have never tasted their blood so to speak, who when faced with defeat have struggled to get back to their feet.

Whatever side of this coin your mental model is currently,? I think it is bizarrely easy to test for. Are you ready? Do this with me.?

Close your eyes, wait, don't yet, read this whole sentence first and then do it, ready? Okay, picture someone winning. Close your eyes. What does that picture look like to you?

There is no wrong answer but for 99% of the people I've asked they always say “someone at the end of a race” or “someone having just landed a big deal”.?

While these are obvious signs of success this is where I don’t believe we should be aiming. Instead, aim for the process of “succeeding” itself.

While it sounds like a pedantic argument of semantics, I assure you the difference both literally and mentally can cause very different responses in yourself and other humans.?

While success is a noun it implies a destination, an end state that you attain. But succeeding is not absolute and by nature is way more transient than anyone ever wants to admit. This is how I feel about the whole argument; we are not absolutes.

Here I go with sports again.

I talk about it all the time but growing up I played a load of sports. Rugby, squash, badminton, track, field, my first love of basketball and a multitude of others kept me busy. Competition is in my blood - my dad was the same and the mentality that comes from that drive stays with me today and shapes my brain with every synapse firing.

I love winning games. I hate losing at anything, but more than winning I love the fire of competition. For me, the thrill of testing myself, competing at a high level and succeeding, is the greatest feeling there is and one that long after my knees have failed me I still lament.

Sportspeople know it's not about that one shot. It's not about the first half. It's not about that game. It's not about the championship. It's not about the next championship but your legacy as a whole on which you're judged. The minutiae can be dwelled upon by others but those who succeed over prolonged periods, realize that success is abstract. The more you succeed the more you are likely to be a success when all is said and done. More pedantry I do apologize.

This stuff is hard. I see this even in people at 11:FS at times. People who believe they have achieved success will often seek other routes to scratch their mental itch. They chase those chemical flushes and finishing lines, rather than realizing that they are by nature succeeding already and need to learn how to enjoy the ride.?

The Trick

I've personally felt this in business. In 2019, back when we didn't use the word pandemic so much, I was up for the award of Entrepreneur of the Year. Sadly, that night I lost to the incredibly smart Romi Savova from Pension Bee, who thoroughly deserved the win and has led the company to enormous success. This is more important to me as a customer!

Result: This defeat drove me to work harder and I'm grateful for it.

The flip of this in 2019 11:FS won the British Bank Award for Consultancy Of The Year (in 2020 and 2021 for that matter also!). It raised our bar and both myself and the team were enormously proud.

Result: This win drove me to work harder and I'm grateful for it.

As the late famed tennis player Arthur Ashe once said:

“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.”

What I think Arthur was trying to get at was that it turns out that you might not even need to reach your goal to be successful. But what you get out of trying is guaranteed to make an impact on your and many other people's lives along the way. By setting out to achieve a goal, you’re forming new habits, committing to strive towards something bigger than yourself, and imbuing your life with a purpose in its pursuit. No one can take those lessons away from you nor can they dull your passion for that pursuit unless you let them, or let it do so.

So how do you deal with success and failure?

Okay back to the question at hand; How do you deal with success and failure?

Firstly, I deal with success and failure by realizing that they are just moments that either fade with fondness or heal with time like scars on your arm.

I took millions of shots playing basketball and missed far more than I ever made, but that didn't make me a bad player or make me scared to play or to shoot again.?You’ve got to shake it off.?

Secondly, in business, and more broadly in life, I have won many times and I have also got many things wrong and lost many times. I try to not allow either of them to linger as a badge either way or to let either of them define me.

Those who allow themselves to be defined by others' definitions of success and failure are doomed to pursue a tortuous life akin to that of the Greek mythology of Sisyphus.?

Sisyphus was given the eternal punishment of forever rolling a boulder up a hill in the depths of Hades only for the boulder to roll down the other side. As he had the strength to repeatedly lift the weight all he had to do was stop, turn and enjoy the views to realize that the journey up the hill was a great gift, not punishment.

In building 11:FS I have loved every single step towards succeeding but do not consider either myself or the business to have succeeded just yet. This keeps myself, our ambitions and our focus grounded in our ultimate vision to change the fabric of financial services.

At the end of the day, you will win and you will lose but you are never really a winner and you're never really a loser while you are still playing the game. To that end, I will accept success or failure and that judgment at the end but until then I will continue to love the journey.

I hope you found that helpful??Let me know in the comments.

Want to do me a favour? Incidentally, 11:FS are up for Consultancy and Pioneer Of The Year at the British Bank Awards again this year. While this wouldn't make or break us then it sure would please us a lot - If you got a little value from this blog then please spare 2 minutes and vote for 11:FS here: https://www.research.net/r/HDYSLJH

Want to do me another one? I'm up for the Online Financial Influencer of the Year also at the British Bank Awards and you can vote for me here: https://www.research.net/r/9YZ6BF2

See you next time and remember to like, share and subscribe :)

Dx